1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method of displaying text in its context on a display screen and more particularly to a method which maintains eye contact with a line of text as the display is changed to show the line in its context.
2. Description of the Related Art
Cross reference tools are used to search input data, which is primarily Assembler, Cobol or C source code, but may also be non-code data, such as text files. The input data, which can be a single file or multiple files, is searched for occurrences of a word in that input data and all lines of characters in the input data containing the word are displayed together with the file in which they were found. A user may select a specific line containing the word and have that line displayed in context, that is shown with the text immediately before and after the line containing the word. The user may return to the display of all lines of the input data containing the word and select another line containing the word and have that line displayed in context.
Conventionally, the selection of the input data and the specification of the word to be searched for is completed on a first screen, or in a first window. The lines of the input data containing the word are displayed together with the name of the file in which they were found on a second screen or in a second window. When a specific line is selected, the line is displayed in its context on a third screen or in a third window. In this way a user moves through the screens or the windows as he moves from specifying a word to look for to where he looks at a specific line containing the word in its context.
The movement from screen to screen or from window to window means that the specific line of input data selected must be located when it is displayed in its context. Conventionally, this is achieved by using highlighting of the specific line or by using color to differentiate the specific line. The user then locates the specific line on the screen or in the window by looking for a highlighted line or by looking for the color used to denote the specific line.
The viewing of specific lines containing the selected word is repeated many times during any particular usage of a cross-reference tool. The need to locate the specific line each time a different occurrence is viewed can be tiring and disrupt the thought process of the user. In addition it can sometimes be difficult to locate the occurrence when it is displayed in its context.
So it would be advantageous if the disruption of the thought process, the tiredness caused by the user's eye locating the specific lines and the lower productivity because of the need to locate an occurrence on a screen could be avoided.